new computer advice

[fla4fun]

At this point the cost of storage is so cheap that there isn't that much of a price premium for more. Except maybe with Apple (some call it the "Apple tax"). But one of the issues I have is that a lot of the best bargains aren't really configurable. They're sold as appliances more or less. And I've purchased some inexpensive PC laptops and couldn't figure out how to take off the cover.

I personally like tinkering, but that's becoming less available. My work Mac was completely fixed.

Yeah, I agree, I never go just by price. Sometimes a bargain is anything but a bargain. I prefer to custom configure when I purchase so I can get the specs I want and not have to worry so much about obsolescence. My laptops tend to die before then, but they last a good ten years or more. Right now I have a Mac from 2009 and a Lenovo ThinkPad from 2013, and a good backup on separate SSD drives for when the inevitable happens.

 

[bcla]

Yeah, I agree, I never go just by price. Sometimes a bargain is anything but a bargain. I prefer to custom configure when I purchase so I can get the specs I want and not have to worry so much about obsolescence. My laptops tend to die before then, but they last a good ten years or more. Right now I have a Mac from 2009 and a Lenovo ThinkPad from 2013, and a good backup on separate SSD drives for when the inevitable happens.

The majority of the computers sold these days are purchased at Best Buy, Target, or Walmart where it's basically what's available in a box and not customizable. And they can be really good bargains if they're on sale.

Obviously in order to get something more or less customized, it's going to take an order directly from Apple, Lenovo, Dell, etc and often the price isn't going to be as good as the ready made ones. My work Mac was ordered through Best Buy, but basically the only way they sold it was by color and either the base or double the base storage configuration. Anything else went through Apple and they almost never have anything on sale.

The biggest problem with Macs is support later on by applications. I have an even older Mac that still works, but I can't get the latest browsers, and a lot of newer websites reject the browsers that still work on security grounds. Windows is different, but a lot of times the newer operating systems are still "supported" but work horribly on older machines.

 

[Neapolitan Ice Cream]

I'd warn against Intel Atom CPUs and i3 CPUs as well. AMD CPUs can either be great or dicey. i5s are pretty good, i7s are very good, i9s are overkill (IMO). Apple products use proprietary chipsets which, depending on what you do, are either hugely superior or vastly inferior. RAM is always a must and if you can, an SSD storage unit will win out over a physical HDD (SSD stands for Solid State Device and is generally much faster at reading and writing files on your computer).

 

[Imzadi]

I've had 3 HP laptops and I will NEVER get another one, nor recommend getting one. They are of the cheapest computers/laptops out for a reason. Something broke on each of them fairly soon after getting them. And definitely within 1-2 years. Turns out, each was a flaw specific to each of the models I got, as others reported getting the exact same broken piece. HP uses really cheap plastic & metal parts. Yet, I generally keep my laptops for about 5 years, until my Windows version is no longer supported by any of the newer programs & apps.

On one, the touchpad's left button broke down exactly 16 days after I bought the laptop. This brings me to the second thing I wouldn't recommend: buying from Best Buy. They have only a 14 or 15 day return policy for computers. And the HP laptop only lasted 2 days longer than that.

Also, HP's tech support is a joke, they only read off the manuals they are given and don't have much real tech experience helping, if your problem isn't in their manual.

I now have had a Dell laptop for about a year and a half, and I LOVE it. And I got from COSTCO of all places. Someone here on the DIS recommended going to Costco. I never would have considered that store as I don't have a membership. Yet, one can get a discounted membership, (do a Google search) AND they have a nice, generous 6 MONTHS return policy! Not 2 weeks, 30 days, or 90 days. A whopping 6 months. AND they have free in-house computer tech support included for, I think a year or 2 included with the Costco membership. (Then I added on another 3 year warranty coverage with Allstate, beyond the Costco 2 year support, as I said I keep my computers a really long time.

Costco has several computers & laptops in different price ranges and uses. When I got my laptop, I really wanted one that has an HDMI port and a DVD recorder/player. BOTH of those features are pretty much no longer included because, as I was told by a millennial, "Millennials don't watch DVDs." And most smart TVs now don't need an HDMI cable. But, I have an older, dinosaur smart TV that still needs an HDMI cable.

Costco knows some of us older age customers require HDMI and a DVD player and they had one of the few laptops that had them - AND had it at a great price. The cheapest Amazon had with HDMI & DVD were around $1000. Costco's Dell laptop was $750. Then they had it on sale for $200 off, so I got the exact laptop I wanted with HDMI, DVD, 1 terabyte of storage, huge memory, decent speedy processor for light gaming, or in my case photo-editing, and dual SSD drive (for speedy booting up) and regular old HDD drive (for the storage.) All for $550.

Then, by accident, my laptop was sent to the wrong address, when during check-out, the USPS address popup box said my address wasn't formatted correctly and to choose a different address. I didn't double-check to see it had auto-picked a completely wrong address, until after I submitted my order. I found out UPS wouldn't return the laptop to Costco in time, before the sale ended. When I spoke to a customer service rep, he said not to worry. He said Costco would match the $200 off sale price whenever the laptop showed back up, my credit card was credited back and I re-ordered it. He noted it in my file. I was cynical that the note would later be in my file or that they really would match the sale price later. But they DID!

It was worth paying for the Costco membership.

 

[Imzadi]

Not really looking at chromebooks , or Apple products

As I recall, Chromebooks have very little storage, they are cloud-based, expecting you to buy Google storage for your data and download files & pics, etc., as needed. Store back up in the cloud, rinse & repeat.

As for Apple products, unless you are really dedicated to changing over and willing to learn how they are configured very, very differently than Windows based PCs or Android based phones & tablets, you will just be endlessly frustrated at not being able to find anything or how to work anything.

 

[bcla]

As I recall, Chromebooks have very little storage, they are cloud-based, expecting you to buy Google storage for your data and download files & pics, etc., as needed. Store back up in the cloud, rinse & repeat.

As for Apple products, unless you are really dedicated to changing over and willing to learn how they are configured very, very differently than Windows based PCs or Android based phones & tablets, you will just be endlessly frustrated at not being able to find anything or how to work anything.

I find Apple's ecosystem to be far more intuitive than Windows.

I have a Chromebook too as a backup. It's built on the idea of having an efficient operating system build and where one isn't necessarily going to be using the built in storage for storing lots of video. I don't know if I'd recommend them to anyone as a primary computer, but as a secondary computer they're great. I paid $100 for mine, and I'm not sure how they could sell one at that price.

 

[loves to dive]

I work for an IT company and hubby is the IT Security manager for another company, we are a Lenovo family. My boss has been known to buy ACER or Dell Pcs for clients, just depends on their budgets and needs. At home, we buy our Lenovo's from Lenovo and hubby builds what we need on their website. Hubby has 2 Lenovo Laptops and his server is a Lenovo. I have an old as dirt Lenovo PC for work with an external hard drive connected to it. It was actually a client's PC and when they closed down they gave us 3 or 4 to get rid of. Boss reconfigured it for me, I'm the bookkeeper and have never in over 30 years of working for the company had a brand new PC. I think it's at least 10 years old. When I brought it home to work from home when we shut down the physical office, hubby worked on it so I could get another few years out of it. I have a Lenovo Yoga for my laptop, it's my second one, first one lasted about 7 years. It's actually still running just used to do Utube workouts in the basement. I didn't need all the bells and whistles for my laptop, just email, internet, word, excel and office email so the Yoga works for me. The boss does buy PCs from Amazon for client's every once in a while and has been able to return them if they were unopened.

 

[MillauFr]

Costco is the best place to buy laptops. The free extended warranty is a great deal.

 

[_19disnA]

My experiences with calling any type of tech support for your PC is so bad, you are better off figuring out what is wrong on your own or find online help from various websites that are available. Tech support tends to be people in some off-shore location who can barely speak English, have no training on how to problem solve, have ZERO actual technical expertise and simply read from a list of commonly asked questions. First they repeat back what your question was and then it becomes obvious they have NO idea how to solve whatever your issue is. I don't need to spend a frustrating hour on the phone with the 'try this/try that' approach of things like rebooting 3 times or clearing cookies/cache.

Fortunately, most computers never have technical issues, but 'customer service' is virtually non-existant if you ever have a problem you can't resolve on your own.

As for Apple products, unless you are really dedicated to changing over and willing to learn how they are configured very, very differently than Windows based PCs or Android based phones & tablets, you will just be endlessly frustrated at not being able to find anything or how to work anything.

I agree. Beside the Apple price premium, most casual users are better off picking either Apple or Windows based devices and sticking with that. At work when we have had both types of computers, most people were confused in how to do common tasks when switching between machines. Files would appear to vanish because the method in which they were stored was different.

 

[Deb]

Thank you all for the advice so far. I was hoping for advice on technical specs. What should I be shopping for for a non gaming computer I'm hoping to last several years and not become completely outdated quickly.

 

[MillauFr]

Thank you all for the advice so far. I was hoping for advice on technical specs. What should I be shopping for for a non gaming computer I'm hoping to last several years and not become completely outdated quickly.

If you are using the computer for e-mail and web browsing the specs don't matter.

 

[kdonnel]

If you are using the computer for e-mail and web browsing the specs don't matter.

Neither does Mac vs Windows

At this point in time, most people are using a browser for everything they do on a computer. It does not matter if that browser is running on a Mac or Windows computer.

 

[Imzadi]

Thank you all for the advice so far. I was hoping for advice on technical specs. What should I be shopping for for a non gaming computer I'm hoping to last several years and not become completely outdated quickly.

I agree with others, if you aren't doing a lot of fancy stuff on your computer, you don't need a lot of bells and whistles. YET, at the very least get a computer with a SSD drive. That's the kind of drive (I think) that makes tablets and smartphones boot up and work immediately. They are also the technology used for removable flash drives, also called thumb drives or memory sticks. No more waiting 2 minutes for the PC to boot up to function.

If you can find one, a dual SSD drive (for speedy booting up) and (regular) HDD drive is better. My info may be old as I stopped keeping up on this stuff once I bought my laptop, but in rare instances, especially now, SSD drives can be glitchy and it's harder to recover the stored data from it. It's the same whether it's a computer, flash drive or external backup SSD drive. Whereas, with the older, more reliable HDD drives computers had, most really good techs can usually get in there and recover your data, IF possible.

With a dual SSD and HDD drive, the SSD drives does all the behind the scenes speedy work, (the C: drive,) meanwhile you keep all your personal files and data on the D: drive (the HDD drive.) So even if something happens to the C: (SSD drive) your data is still safe in the D: (HDD drive.)

Unless you find one at a great price, you can skip computers which advertise they are great "gaming computers." You will be paying for more than you need. It's like you need a good reliable Ford or Chevy car for your basic needs, and you are looking at Mitsubishi TURBO cars. If it's at a fantastic price, great. It won't hurt to have the extra stuff. But you won't need it.

Since your current computer is 10 years old, it's probably only a few GBs total including all the operating system stuff, say 5GBs. Nowadays, most new computers will start at a few hundred GBs for storage, operating system and extra apps/programs installed. So, when we say pretty much any basic computer will do what you need, that's what we mean.

Even with not knowing what apps will be created in the future that you may later really want to add on in a few years, app developers are quite aware to keep the amount of bytes their app uses down to a minimum as we users will often delete apps that take up too much bytes, hard drive space, battery life, etc., to use, no matter how great an app it is. Another app developer will come along right after, creating almost the same app features AND it will use less bytes, space, energy, battery life, etc., and be the TikTok or Facebook of the day.

Memory is different than Storage. Memory is what is used to make your computer run faster, especially if it's running many processes / programs at the same time. (Data) Storage is for all the files, pictures, data, you save on your computer.

The amount of memory your PC should have, a basic computer should already come with enough for your needs. However, as a PP said, the more memory you get the better. Many PCs will have the feature of being able to expand your memory by buying an extra memory card for $30 or so (in the future) and sliding it into the extra empty memory slot pre-installed.) Look for descriptions that say something like it has "32GB memory expandable to 64GB or 128GB."

You can do almost all your shopping for computers online now. No need to go into a store and have a young, nerdy sales guy spew all of the tech jargon at you, overwhelm you with info, and you still do not know whether that's what you need.

Just post some links here of PCs you are thinking of and a DISer will tell you if it's a good computer for your needs. We have a lot of DISers who love to tell other DISers what to do.

But, seriously, we can help.

 

[MillauFr]

Neither does Mac vs Windows

At this point in time, most people are using a browser for everything they do on a computer. It does not matter if that browser is running on a Mac or Windows computer.

Agreed. Somehow Mac is still able to get people to pay a premium

 

[Imzadi]

My experiences with calling any type of tech support for your PC is so bad, you are better off figuring out what is wrong on your own or find online help from various websites that are available. Tech support tends to be people in some off-shore location who can barely speak English, have no training on how to problem solve, have ZERO actual technical expertise and simply read from a list of commonly asked questions. First they repeat back what your question was and then it becomes obvious they have NO idea how to solve whatever your issue is. I don't need to spend a frustrating hour on the phone with the 'try this/try that' approach of things like rebooting 3 times or clearing cookies/cache.

That was my experience with HP technical support. Not long after I got HP laptop #2 with them and updated my operating system, the internal DVD player stopped working. I was never sure whether it broke or the operating system just couldn't connect to it properly. UNTIL I had to reset the computer back to factory specs when I got a computer virus that shut down my machine. When it was back to factory specs, the DVD player suddenly worked again. But, when it updated itself again, the DVD player stopped functioning again.

I called the useless HP tech, paid $50 since it was beyond warranty, and the guy just read the manuals to me, and recommended a clean install, since the computer worked from the factory. When I finally said I'll just buy an external DVD player, the tech was soooo happy HE could help me arrive at a solution and write that into the case file. That's when I vowed never again to get an HP, no matter how enticing the price and features of their computers.

As was previously said:

Sometimes a bargain is anything but a bargain.

It's NOT worth it.

I agree. Beside the Apple price premium, most casual users are better off picking either Apple or Windows based devices and sticking with that. At work when we have had both types of computers, most people were confused in how to do common tasks when switching between machines. Files would appear to vanish because the method in which they were stored was different.

Yes, I work special events around the city. We go into places and the clients give us their tablets or smartphones with dedicated apps pre-installed for us to run their event. When there is a problem with the device, none of us Android users can figure out the Apple devices. Same vice versa. We have to wait the 10 minutes for the IT guy to come around and fix the device. It's often a 30 second fix. But, none of us know where it is on the other devices.

 

[kdonnel]

Agreed. Somehow Mac is still able to get people to pay a premium

People pay more for things than they could all the time.

Clothes, cars, food, etc.

Computers are no different.

 

[twinklebug]

The key to working with HP tech support is to insist politely that you speak with ON SHORE (US Based) tech support.
I worked with the company, have had issues with their computers and spent countless hours with the overseas support staff getting nowhere. They're paid to read scripts and not think outside the box. The on shore folk worked with me for about 15 minutes, saw the issue was complex (PC kept freezing when not processing graphics) and sent me a new computer.

That said, I'm done buying HP. The company has pretty computers but the product is horrible.
There is a reason that as an employee of the company we worked on leased Dells.

 

[tvguy]

Agreed. Somehow Mac is still able to get people to pay a premium

Well Apple does deeply discount for the education market, which is pretty smart marketing. We used to get new hires in right out of College who were shocked to find out in the real world, PCs are more popular after they used Apple in College. Largely because PC makers like HP and Dell WILL deeply discount for the business market.

 

[tvguy]

At this point the cost of storage is so cheap that there isn't that much of a price premium for more. Except maybe with Apple (some call it the "Apple tax"). But one of the issues I have is that a lot of the best bargains aren't really configurable. They're sold as appliances more or less. And I've purchased some inexpensive PC laptops and couldn't figure out how to take off the cover.

I personally like tinkering, but that's becoming less available. My work Mac was completely fixed.

Well, as they say, your mileage may vary. I way way way overbought on storage when I bought my current Dell. I bought a 455 GB hard drive, anticipating lots of video and photo work on it. Didn't happen and 16 years later as i am looking to replace it, I still have 325 GB available!

 

[_19disnA]

Have an HP laptop now that works great and never needed to call customer support fortunately!!!

No idea you could ask for your preferred tech support location and obviously they never tell you that is an option. Appears many companies think they are saving money with offshore help desks and mostly end up with frustrated customers. If they can't really 'help'.............it is pointless to even offer that service. I do find the online chat works better with some companies. But with others, you still get someone with zero product knowledge and you can tell by their grammar/syntax they have only a limited grasp of English.

It isn't only with computers that their 'help desk' is frustrating. Was trying to buy something from one of the major home improvement stores recently and the same product was shown on their website in two different places with prices that were $50 apart. I provided the page url's to the person in chat so they could see what I was seeing. They just read me the product description from the website and didn't seem to grasp (or care) about the price difference for what was clearly the same product. Then I laugh at the end of most customer service calls, they want you to fill out a survey..........................umm no thanks, you couldn't help me and now want me to say what a great job you did?...............LOL.